Matters
by Crazyhumor
Summary: Jerry and Kim are having a rough time. The fact that they supposedly betrayed Jack makes it all worse. But things aren't always as they seem.


Well I'm seeing if anyone want to see more of this story.

Please Review

Shameless, absolutely shameless, he'll admit that, but it's a matter of survival at this point.

He grabs another mini spicy weeny in a biscuit blanket and grins at the unimpressed looking associate. "Good, seriously the ish, dude... These are Ballpark right?" He mumbles chewing quickly, already reaching for another one.

The man looks at him over his glasses, green irises filled with judgment, and then he looks down at the little blonde girl beside him, also stuffing her face with the food. "I think you've had enough samples." The man says slowly, pulling back his tray. "Boxes are on sell for 3.99… in the frozen food section."

The little girl and the boy very slowly retract their hands. Jerry looks down at the little girl beside him and places a hand on her shoulder before looking back at the man. "We'll think about that." He quickly steers the child down an aisle.

"I'm still hungry." The girl looks up at him with large green eyes and pats her stomach.

He gently smiles at the girl. "They have chip samples towards the front. We'll try those." He continues to lead the child to the front of the grocery store. They both look at the food they go by longingly, wishing they had the means to pic up anything they wanted. Jerry bites his lip, his stomach growls. Before they reach the chip samples stand Jerry comes to a stop. "You go on without me, birdie." He uses his nickname for the child.

The little girl looks positively horrified by his words, "What, why?"

"I'm not going to leave you, Lilly." He assures the child. The girl believed everyone was going to leave her like her parents had. Like his parents had left him. He had to reassure her constantly that they wouldn't leave her. "I'm going to find your sister. And.. without me with you, you can eat more. Folks have a hard time saying no to cute little girls. I'll come back and get you when I get her."

The girl nods reluctantly, and Jerry pats her head before quickly head towards the clinic located in the very rear of store. He's almost there when someone calls out to him – quite loudly.

"Martinez!"

He comes to a quick halt, his shoulders sagging as he mentally groans. _Does she have to be loud? _Hormones and this girl was a crazy very slowly turns around and watches blank faced as Kim comes towards him in a quick wobble. His eyes go to her extended belly under a large grey T-shirt and he bites his lip.

"Why isn't Lilly with you?"

He cringes, and looks around, some nosey shoppers openly stared, and others had diffidently tuned in on their conversation. " She's at a food stand. Why are you yelling?" He asks slowly. She huffs, brushing strands of blonde hair out her face.

"She's seven you idiot, you can't leave her alone in a store. You want her kidnapped?" She once again huffs.

He lightly rubs the back of his neck. "Lilly's smart – "

"She's still a little girl." Her eyes narrow at him. "Come on," she grabs his arm and begins tugging him towards the way he had come.

After a while he takes the lead. "Well, Lilly was right there…" He trails upon making it back to the food stand, finding in empty besides the associate. He finds himself being hit in the arm.

"I swear Martinez, if you lost my sister…"

"Does this thing belong to you?" An annoyed voice comes up behind them. They turn to find a greying man holding Lilly up by her yellow sweater collar. The girl didn't even look up, her blonde hair shielding her face. "We caught her stealing in the bakery." The man looked at the teens, his eyes going from Jerry to Kim and then to Kim's stomach. Jerry could read what he was thinking right away. Which causes the boy to clench his jaw, this wasn't good.

"Prove she actually stole anything." Kim quickly says, though she looked annoyed he could see the underline worry on her features. "It isn't nice, nor just, to go around accusing people of stealing."

The man glares. "I have an abundance of proof, little girl."

"Like what?" The girl is quick to respond, folding her arms over herself.

"She has powdered sugar over her mouth." The man dully said. The girl indeed did. " Lo –"

"Circumstantial, at best," It's Jerry who chimes in this time.

The manager reaches into the girl's seater pockets and pulls out a plastic container of cookies, "my biggest line of proof. Now give me your parents number, if that isn't at all possible then I'm afraid I'm going to have to call the cops."

Not good, not good at all. Jerry quickly steps forward as Kim backs up a little. "You don't have to do that." He quickly says, laughing a little. "I'll pay for the cookies."

The man looks at him, studying him before finally saying. "She tried to steal. I have to report this."

"She's still inside, nothing's been stolen yet." His hands were beginning to sweat. "How about you save yourself from having to do paperwork and all the hassle. How much were they?"

The man thinks about that before finally sighing. "You're lucky I'm busy, Kid. They cost five bucks."

"Five bucks?" Jerry echoes slowly.

"Is that a problem?" The man asks dryly seemingly unsurprised.

Jerry glances towards Kim who looks down right after meeting his gaze. "No, it's not a problem." He mumbles reaching into his back pocket of his black shorts for his wallet, fishing out the last bill inside and handing it over. "Thank you, sir." He takes the cookies from the man and Kim quickly snatches her sister back. "Let's go." Her arms wrap around her seven year old sister.

"Stay out of trouble!" The man calls out after them.

Jerry walks ahead of Kim and Lilly quickly as he heads towards his car, his shoulders tense. The girl looks down at her sister.

"What in the hell were you thinking." She whispers tiredly. "Do you have any idea what could have happened if you were caught?" The girl doesn't answer and keeps her head down and her hands in her pockets.

Jerry gets into the car first, and slams his car door hard and not only because it was the only way to get it to close. He grips his steering wheel hard, his eyes focused ahead. Kim gets in after him and stares at him until he turns to look at her.

"Calm down," she tells him.

"What? Can't I be mad?" He yells back. "Why can everyone else be mad but I can't?"

Her face twists into one of rage and her teeth grit together. "Don't yell at me!"

"I – "

"I was hungry!" Lilly whispers loudly from the backseat, quickly snuffing the argument between the teens. They both turn to look at the crying girl. "I stole them because I was hungry." She loudly sobs, closing her eyes tightly and shaking her head. "I'm sorry, don't be mad."

Both of the teens anger was replaced by guilt.

"I'm not mad." Jerry quickly says.

The girl sniffs. "Yes you are." She whimpers.

"Well yeah, I was." He has to admit. "But, that's because I was afraid." He gives Lilly a small smile. "I was worried that he would call the cops and… none of us want that."

"Yeah…" Kim agrees meeting Jerry gaze. "I'm not mad either." She then reaches back and ruffles the girl's already messy blonde hair. "Leave the merchandise thieving to the adults." She then turns back around and pulls up her shirt and waist band to her jeans, pulling out a bag of chips handing it to the girl.

"Kim!" Jerry smirked. "You criminal."

The teenaged girl gave him a dry look. "Having this big ass stomach has to come in handy for something besides making me look like a baby whale."

{"

They make it home as it was nearing night and Jerry clicked on the hall light only to discover it was not working. He clicked it a few more times before groaning.

"Didn't you pay the bill?" Kim asked hotly. "How could you forget about that?"

"Lilly, go to your room." Jerry calmly says sensing another argument coming up and not wanting the girl to get upset like earlier.

"How can she? She can't even see!"

"Here, use my phone." He blinks it on illuminating the hall and handing it over to the girl. "Go to sleep, you have classes in the morning." He lightly pats the girl's head. The girl leaves with one last look at them.

Jerry turns to Kim, who he can barely see in the blackened space. "I'm sorry for buying food Monday instead of paying our electricity bill." He then storms off down the hall, fumbling around until he finds a candle and lights it, carefully placing it on the coffee table. He takes a seat on the couch, grabbing a notebook he begins calculations on how to pay all of their bills with his measly three hundred dollar pay check from his job, plus eat actual food. The couch shifts as Kim takes a seat beside him. Feeling her eyes on him he looks at the girl, half her face was shadowed the other orange from the candle.

"I'm sorry." It's not the first time he's heard the girl apologize, but it made him feel odd every time. Nothing is her fault. "Hormones I think." She lightly shrugs, she breaks eye contact. "Are you… are you going to have enough money to pay Tony?" She fumbles with the ends of her T-shirt, and she looks afraid, worried that he wouldn't have enough money to keep the 'collectors' at bay.

Their parents had owed a lot of money to a certain group of people and had been unable to repay the loans. The two couples had apparently gone into business together back in the eighties and had borrowed the money together. They were unable to repay and left the entire burden on their children when they escaped together, apparently thinking the 'collectors' wouldn't actually burden the children with the great amount of dept. They were wrong. Nearly a year ago their parents left them together in one house, telling them to look after each other and promising they would send money every month. First month goes by they get fifty bucks, first month goes by Tony shows up, beats up Jerry until he can barely stand and takes Kim. He thinks of going to the cops but is afraid and remembers his mother telling them the group has high connections. He gets Jade back instead, borrowing money from his abulea and his uncles, using the money he had saved up since he was eleven and was able to get her back, not before a lot of damage was done. 7,000 dollars, plus taking out another loan with Tony's people on top of the one belonging to their parents is what it cost to get back a bruised, broken Kim. From then on it's been him, Kim, and Lilly, him quitting school to get a full time work, watching as Kim's stomach began to grow because of what happened at Tony's. Life was hard for them, very hard. Hardest was the lie they were forced to tell, the one in which cost him a best friend and Kim a true love. A lie was thought up in which everyone believed he was the father of Kim's unborn child. It was the only way to keep both of their parents out of jail, Tony from killing them, and Lilly with Kim and not in some foster home.

"I'll have the money." He assures leaning back into the couch and closing his eyes. His eyes open when he feels a head land on his shoulder and fingers entwine in his.

"How much do we owe them still?" Kim's asks quietly. His eyes once again close, the weight on his shoulder suddenly feeling a thousand times heavier.

"Four million..." It was daunting. He barely made a thousand dollars a month.

"I should get a job." He feels her remove her head from his shoulder. "AC Nickle is hiring..."

He quietly sighs. "We've already talked about this..." He opens one eye to look at her. She frowning at him. "Not yet..."

"You don't honestly think you can do this on your own do you?"

"Your doctor put you on bed rest," he tells her. He yawns. "Focus on school."

"I feel fine now." She lightly shoves into his shoulder. "I'm fine. We have to pay Tony back... he's tacking on interest everyday."

His bed was seriously calling his name. "Your not working until after your baby is born." He gets to his feet in a swift movement. "That's final. I have work in the morning." He leaves quickly, ending their conversation.

(O)

Jerry would kill her if he had any idea she was here, but hopefully he wouldn't find out. They needed money and Rudy had offered her a job a couple months ago, she hoped the offer still stood.

She lightly tugs at her sleeves as she enters her old dojo, her heart clenching. It was early morning which hopefully kept her from running into anyone who she may not want to meet yet. It had been months since the last time the girl had set foot in the building, but not a thing had actually changed.

Rudy was struggling to carry a box when she walked in.

"Welcome... to the bobby... wasbi dojo..." He grunted his greeting without turning around, nearly tripping and dropping his box.

"Nice to see you again, Rudy." The man actually does drop his box full of T-shirts, whirling around. She lightly smiles, only slightly forced.

"Kim!" He throws his hands up as if he has no idea what to do with them. "Hey... hey..." His eyes zoom over her quickly, constantly landing on her swollen abdomen, but it's obvious he's trying not to linger on it. "You're back and you're... you're huge..." He laughs nervously, his smile becoming more of a grimace. "I mean... you're not huge..."

"It's alright." The girl interrupts, biting her lip. "I am huge." An awkward silence wiggles between them like an unwanted hug.

"How are you? How's Jerry?" He blurts after awhile.

"I'm fine..." The girl trails. "Jerry's fine too." She crosses her arms, looking at the floor, suddenly regretting coming here. It was months ago that he offered her a job.

"What brings you by?" He asks at her silence, composing himself by dusting imaginary dust from his gi. "Oh," he quickly moves forward, grabbing a chair sitting outside his office and pushing towels off it. "Have a seat," he offers.

She accepts the offer, because her feet were literally demanding it. Now the issue would be getting up again.

"Do you want water... something..."

"No," she comes to a conclusion that coming out and saying this was the easiest way to do it. "You offered me a job a few months ago... when... when you guys first found out I was pregnant. I dunno... if you've changed your min - "

"No... No..." Rudy scratches his chin. "The offer is still there." He nods with his words. "It'll be nice having you back. We've all... We have truly missed you guys."

Kim forces a smile. "Yeah... What exactly is it?"

"Helping me with keeping track of stuff." He lightly shrugs. "You'll be like my assistant."

The girl nods. "I'll just have to be off before at least an hour prior to Jerry," she explained. "He usually gets off work at ten." She hoped keeping this a secret from him was possible.

The man frowns but nods. "Yeah, I close up way before ten anyway." He waves his hands. "No problem."

(O)

Rudy doesn't actually have a lot for Kim to do, so mostly she organized stuff in his office and 'proof' read his letters, which did have a lot of mistakes, she was left tapping her finger mostly.

Around four O'clock she grows nervous.

Her phone begins to ring as soon as Rudy pokes his head into his office. He lightly grins. "Hey, can you come help organize these T-shirts for my fundraiser?"

"Of course," the girl nods, getting to her feet, letting her phone fall into her pocket. Not checking to see who it was. She follows the man out, coming to a sudden halt upon seeing Milton and Jack warming up.

Her insides churn and suddenly she feels like throwing up. Milton turns to her first, grinning brightly, yet nervously.

"Hey Kim..." He glances towards Jack, who was still throwing sparing kicks into the air. "Rudy told us about you being here."

The blonde wraps her arms around herself. "Yeah..."

Jack finally stops his kicking and also turns, running a hand through his hair. "Long time no see." He easily smiles. A smile greatly contrasting the look on his face five months ago, the hurt and anger seems to be gone.

The girl tries to return it, but her own smile feel forced and fragile, ready to break away in any moment. Her phone once again vibrates in her pocket.

"Alright," It's Rudy who interrupts the awkward silence that had over come them, "I need you to separates those T-shirts into two colors, blue and red, I would appreciate it if you would size them as well."

"No problem," Kim nods walking to the box, leaning over and picking up one of the T-shirts. "What's the fundraiser?"

"A trip around Asia," Rudy says excitedly. "Learning Kung Fu from a Tibetan monk... yes I have those connections."

Kim lightly smiles. "Sounds fun..." Her phone once again vibrates in her pocket, this time she has no choice but to not ignore it. Glancing at her old friends, she fishes the object out of her pocket and walks a bit away from them before answering.

"Hello..."

"I've called you five times." Jerry's voice nearly burst her ear drum. She yanks the cell phone away from her right ear and glares at it. Then, she quickly throws a glance over her shoulder. All of them seemed to not be listening in on the conversation. "What are you doing?" Why was he out of breath.

"I was helping Lilly with her homework." She lies. "I'm fine."

"I was worried." He takes a breath. "I was like, a phone call away from leaving work."

A sigh leaves the girl. "I'm fine, honestly." she combs at her hair with her free hand. "We're wasting minutes here, I'm sure you called for a reason."

"Well dang..." He feigns being hurt. "You almost get me fired for leaving work five hours early and you don't even want to have a decent conversation?"

Kim smiles and shakes her head. "I'm busy. And you have no idea how hard first-grade math is now a days."

"I can guess." He huffs. "But, I called because I got my pay check. With over time it'll be enough to get the electricity turned back on, so you can call them and make arrangements."

"Alright," the girl nods, her free hand falling to her stomach.

"I'm bringing left over pancakes home too."

Kim makes a face. The girl was seriously tired of pancakes, but the boy worked at the Nationally Famous Pancake House. At least her sister liked them.

"Great..."

He laughs as if he can hear her disdain in her voice. "I promise, tomorrow when I get my pay check from Banks, we'll eat anything you want."

"A cheeseburger..." She moans, "with extra cheese?"

"Anything you want." He confirms. "I have to go, Kim. See you when I get home."

"Bye,"

(O)

"Remember Lilly, the fact that you spent all afternoon with Ms. Livingston, is our secret." The blonde teenager reminds her sister after letting them both into the blackened freezing house. "You have to keep it between us, no telling Jerry."

"I don't wanna to lie to Jerry." The child follows her sister into the freezing kitchen. "I don't want him to leave us too."

Kim sighs. "Jerry isn't going to leave us." The lights flicker on in the hallway. "About time," the teen huffs. Her sister shrugs before climbing into the chair at the island. "You eat at Ms. Livingston?"

The child nods. "She gave me a peanut butter sandwich." Kim flips on the lights. "And a big glass of milk..."

"Nice." The teen nods. "Did you do your homework?"

Lilly's lips thin and she bites them. "Yeah but... I don't think I wanna go to school anymore."

"And why not?" The older girl frowns. "You have to go to school, Lilly, it's important."

"You don't go to school." The child shoots back. "You and Jerry dropped out."

"Yeah and you see how well that's working out for us." Kim sighs. "Stay in school, Lilly. Don't become like us."

Lilly pouts. "But it's not your fault, it's mom and dad's. You loved school." The child props her elbows onto the counter. "Sometimes... sometimes... I hate them. Why did they leave us?"

"You shouldn't hate them." She tells her sister, but honestly, she hates them. She hates them more then she hates Tony and his goons. "They're your parents no matter what." Her insides churn.

"I'm back!" She hears Jerry call out. He appears a second later with a paper bag, still covered in flour.

"Pancakes!" Lilly cries out as Jerry plops the bag in front of her.

"Well thank you, I'm happy to see you too, Lilly." Jerry ruffles the girl's hair. Lilly grins and digs out a styrofoam container of pancakes and packages of syrup. She hands the first container to Kim, and another over to Jerry before getting her own.

"Thank you, ladybug." Kim grins at her sister. "You never said... why don't you want to go to school?" She adds another package of syrup over her pancakes.

Lilly takes her precious time chewing up her pancakes. "It's stupid..." She wipes at her mouth with her sleeve, the older girl scowls in displeasure. "We're having this thing called a run-don't-bully... I don't have any running shoes. It's stupid. I don't even like to run."

Jerry and Kim share a look. Guilt tugs at the older girl's insides, starting to think maybe a foster home was the best thing for her sister.

Suddenly she wasn't hungry anymore. What's left of the meal is eaten in silence. Lilly goes to bed, leaving the teens to clean up.

"I'll find a way to get her shoes." Jerry says as he leans against the island.

Kim ties up the trash bag and shakes her head. "You don't have to do that."

"Yeah I do." Jerry shrugs. "You guys are my family now." Kim smiles. "All we can count on now is each other."

(O)

"It's a letter from our parents..." Jerry says as he enters their living room. "Well, your mom and mine." He throws the envelope onto the coffee table, not bothering to open the light brown envelope. He flops down onto the couch, yanking the bag of chips out of her hands, shoving a handful into his mouth.

Kim gives him a brief stink eye before leaning forward, picking up the envelope up. "I wonder what they could possibly have to say to us."

"Nothing helpful." Jerry mumbles, gaze locked on the television that was playing some old DVD.

"It's kind of heavy." Kim comments, carefully tearing the envelope open, her lids widen. "It's money."

"What?" He instantly sits up. Kim flips the envelope over, dumping it's contents on the couch in-between them.

"There's at lease five thousand dollars here." The girl cannot help a slow grin from spreading across her face. "Whoa..."

Jerry's reaction is reserved. "A little too late... They owe us more then this." He flops back onto the couch, gaze on the television.

Kim bites her lip. "It's still money... we can pay Tony with it."

"Yeah." Is his response.

The blonde frowns. "Jerry... I've been thinking... It can't be easy for them...I'm sure they're trying..."

He looks at her sharply. "It's not easy for us, Kim. They're our parents... they're the ones who look after us, suppose too anyway. They left us to clean up a mess they made. I don't care what they find hard." She's surprised upon seeing the tears in his irises, before a word is able to leave her, he's standing. "I going in to work." He grabs his coat off the couch.

"What about Tony?" Kim asks, unsure if bringing up his tears was a good idea. "You have to pay him today."

He quickly shrugs his coat on. "I'll do it tonight. We can give him the whole five-thousand."

(O)

Kim glances at her watch before getting to her feet. Another day working at Rudy's dojo over. A sigh leaves her.

"Hey Kim..."

She looks behind her, halting her movements. She takes a breath before fully turning to face her ex-boyfriend. He quickly jogs over from the back, a towel around his neck. He comes to a stop before her, he looks down and then up.

He's nervous, she quickly realizes.

"I was wondering if I could speak with you... and Jerry." He uncomfortably shifts on his feet. "I want to apologize about what I said a few months ago."

Oh... Kim swallows dryly, forcing a smile on her face. " Yo- "

"I was hurt and I..." He trails.

Kim shakes her head. "You don't have to apologize... like you said, you were hurt. If... if anyone needs to apologize it's me."

"No" He quickly says. "You..."

"Seriously Jack..." She interrupts. "I thinks it's best if we... all forget about it. It was a tough time for all of us." He looks as if he wants to argue. "I have to go... pick up my sister. See you later, Jack."

"See you,Kim."

With one last tight lipped smile the girl leaves.

Please Review


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